Across China on Foot eBook

The other day some men passed through several towns,
on the way to the capital, carrying three coffins.
In the first was a corpse, the other two were packed
with opium. Being suspected at Yuen-nan-fu, the
first coffin was opened, and the carriers, making
as much row as they could because their coffin had
been burst open, secured a fair “squeeze”
to hold their tongues, and the second and third coffins
were passed unexamined. Quite common is it for
men to travel in armed bands from the province of
Kwei-chow, traveling by night over the mountains by
lantern-light, and hiding by day from any possible
official searchers.

Opium, which is and always has been so heavily taxed,
does not in general follow the ordinary trade routes
on which likin stations are numerous, but is
carried by these armed bands over roads where the
native Customs stations are few, and so poorly equipped
as to yield readily to superior force, where the men
are compelled to accept a composition much below the
official rate.

Opium smoking is still common in Western China among
people who can afford it. At the time of the
crusade against it, wealthy people laid in stocks
enough to last them for years; and, so long as there
is smuggling from other provinces, which do grow it,
into those which do not, there will be no danger of
the absolute extermination being carried successfully
into effect. Kwei-chow, in common with the western
provinces, has undeservedly secured the credit for
having practically abolished the poppy; but at the
present moment (December, 1909) she is at a loss to
know what to do with her supply, and that is the reason
why people of Yuen-nan are making bargains in opium
smuggled over the border. Much has yet to be
done. To prevent the growth of a plant which has
been in China for at least twelve centuries, which
has had medicinal uses for nine, and whose medicinal
properties have been put in the capsule for six, is
not an easy matter, far more difficult, in fact, than
the average Englishman and even those who rant so
much about the whole business upon little knowledge
can imagine. Opium has been made in China for
four centuries, and although used then with tobacco,
has been smoked since the middle of the seventeenth
century.[M]

A few years ago Yuen-nan had only two articles of
importance with which to pay for extra provincial
products consumed, namely, opium and tin. The
latter came from a spot twenty miles from Mengtsz,
and the value of the output now runs to approximately
three million taels. Opium came from all parts
of the province and went in all directions, that portion
sent to the Opium Regie at Tonkin sometimes being close
to three thousand piculs, and the quantity going by
land into China being very much greater. Yuen-nan
opium was known at Canton and Chin-kiang in 1863.
In 1879, the production was variously estimated at
from twelve thousand to twenty-two thousand piculs;
in 1887 it had risen to approximately twenty-seven
thousand piculs, and since then to the time of the
reform no less certainly than thirty thousand piculs.